So, This is Dying? I'd Rather Be Eating Pineapple
by Kansas42
Summary: Shawn’s Big Reveal doesn’t go quite the way he planned. Gunfire can do that. Stupid bad guys.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Another exercise in Shawn whump!

Summary: Shawn's Big Reveal doesn't go quite the way he planned. Gunfire can do that. Stupid bad guys.

Disclaimer: The Psych characters don't belong to me. But, if Shawn did . . . duuuude. I'd be a happy woman.

"So, This Is Dying (I'd Rather Be Eating Pineapple)"

I.

Shawn's about to do his Big Reveal when The Bad Guy, understanding that he's been caught, _completely_ breaks the rules by pulling out a gun. Clearly he hasn't been around for the last four years, because this, right here, is obviously _not _gun-pulling time. As any small child could have told him, this is when The Bad Guy starts spouting futile things like, "This is ridiculous," or "I would never" or "You're going to listen to this . . . this . . . lunatic, this crazy handsome madman with the most beautifully sculpted hair I have ever seen." It's all in the Five Stages of Being Revealed as a Criminal. Only after going through the Denial Stage is The Bad Guy ready to pull out the hidden gun, and that's only if he's particularly gung-ho. Usually, he just runs. Of course, this part never works out very well for The Bad Guy, but then again, he's _The Bad Guy_. That's just pretty much how it goes.

This week's Bad Guy, however, is a rebel, a maverick, you might say, unless you were Shawn of course, in which case you would say that the only real maverick is Tom Cruise and that this guy is just the plastic wrapper getting in the way of a delicious Twinkie. Shawn can't _believe_ this is happening to him. He'd prepared for a full _fifteen minutes _for this particular Reveal—it was going to be spectacular; it was going to make Lassie weep, even—but more importantly, only Shawn's allowed to break the rules. This has been well established; Shawn's even put it on fliers and hung them around the station. It's simply unacceptable that this . . . this _minor character _is trying to steal the limelight from him. Unacceptable, dammit.

Unfortunately, The Bad Guy still has a gun, so Shawn only has time to say, "Hey, that's not cool—" before The Bad Guy starts shooting and everyone starts ducking, Shawn included. Going down, he manages to hit his side pretty hard on the small desk in the motel room, which is just great. Now he's going to bruise—he's told Gus; he's an easy bruiser; it's a curse, having such perfectly flawless skin—and _damn_, if it doesn't really, _really_ hurt.

Shawn looks up in time to see The Bad Guy take one in the chest—Juliet's shot him, the gun actually smoking a little as she holds it—God, that's _hot_. The Bad Guy's dead before he hits the ground, and Shawn scrambles to his feet. He fully intends to do his Big Reveal anyway—screw The Dead Bad Guy, trying to ruin this moment for him—when he hears Juliet gasp. Shawn turns around to see what's wrong.

Juliet's taken a step toward him, her face almost ashen it's so pale. Shawn stares at her, putting the clues together—Gus, from somewhere behind him, yelling his name; Juliet, mouth open like she wants to say something but can't find the words; the pain, suddenly just _searing_ through his stomach, so much worse than anything that could be caused by bumping into a piece of furniture—

He knows before he looks down, but he looks down anyway (_he always looks)_ and sees the blood pouring from his stomach . . .

"Hey," Shawn says and falls forward.

II.

_1987_

_Shawn's nine years old when it happens. He hears the phone but ignores it—Thundercats is on TV, and he has already told everybody that he's ever known (and several that he doesn't) that he won't be interrupted, not if the whole world is about to explode, not even if David Hasshelhoff and K.I.T.T. come roaring up the driveway. But then he hears his mother gasp, a small, quiet, rush of air, and Shawn turns to look at her and everything changes._

_Mom's skin, already fair, grows more pale as she listens. The fingers on her left hand tremble. She fiddles with her wedding ring unconsciously. Her eyes grow bright. Wet. Scared._

_She locks eyes with Shawn and then quickly turns away, murmuring on the phone so that he can't hear what she's saying. But he knows what she's saying. He knows in the way that she hangs up the phone, how she leans against the counter, palms pressed flat, fingers spread wide, straining. He knows when she turns around and looks at him, her lips pulled upwards in a grotesque parody of a smile, her eyes full of things that he knows that she knows that she can't bring herself to say out loud. He can't say these things out loud, either. He can't ask the question that he already knows the answer to._

_Shawn asks, "Mom?" and Mom says, "We have to go the hospital now, Goose." _

_And they go._

_They find Dad sitting on a gurney, holding a white cloth to his head. The cloth isn't really white anymore. Mom nearly knocks Dad down, she hugs him so hard. Dad's clearly startled by her reaction, the tears on her own face (and Shawn's too). "Maddie . . ." he says, touching her cheek. _

_Mom says, "They just said there was a shooting, that you'd been hurt . . .". _

"_I'm fine, honey, I'm fine. Hit my head on the floor and the damn doctors want to keep me for observation. They have their heads up their asses—" _

"_Henry." A quick look to Shawn, as if he hasn't heard (or said) such language before, and Dad just looks grumpy when he says, "Well, they do." He looks at Shawn again, smiling kind of gently. It looks weird, and not just because Dad isn't exactly a gentle and fuzzy guy, but also because of the blood that's staining his scalp, his hair, his neck. It frightens Shawn, all that red. It can't be normal. You aren't supposed to have that much blood outside of you. "You were pretty scared, huh?" Dad asks him._

"_No," Shawn lies instantly, and Dad's eyebrow raises. He watches his son for a second, but he doesn't call him on the lie. That can't be a good sign. Dad must be really, really sick._

"_You aren't dying, are you?" Shawn asks._

"_No, son, I'm not." _

_And for some reason, that makes Shawn burst into tears, even though he should be happy. He doesn't WANT his dad to die. He doesn't understand why he's crying. He expects Dad to be mad about it—Dad has very definitive ideas about when a boy is allowed to cry, and Shawn doubts that this is one of them—but Dad doesn't yell. He doesn't even look angry. Instead, he leans down to where Shawn is standing, and Shawn thinks maybe Dad's going to hug him, or wants to, but in the end all he does is give him a dollar._

"_There's a candy machine in the cafeteria," Dad says. "Why don't you get yourself something?"_

_Shawn takes the dollar hesitantly and walks out of the room. He hears his mother whispering, _

"_Henry, would it physically kill you to say 'I love you,' just once to the boy—"but he's out of earshot before he can hear anymore. The cafeteria is on the basement floor. He takes the elevator down, buys himself a Charleston Chew, and then promptly charms a nearby nurse into buying him another one. (He never exactly said that he was an orphan, so he can hardly be held accountable for her misunderstanding, can he?)_

_On his way back to his parents, Shawn sees a brunette woman lying on a gurney. Her stomach is bloody and awful. He can't begin to wonder what could have caused that. He watches as the doctors work on her, as the nurses scramble for somewhere to put her. There are a lot of people in the ER tonight. They have no rooms. There are too many sick people._

_Shawn stares at the bright red blood, dripping off the gurney to the floor. Gus, he knows, would faint dead away, but Shawn just watches with wide eyes. A nurse comes up behind him, puts her hand on his shoulder. "Don't look, sweetie," she tells him. You don't need to see that."_

_The nurse says her name is Caroline. She takes him by the hand and they start walking back to his parents. She says that the woman is going to be fine, but she doesn't look at him when she says it. Another nurse rushes up, looking frantic. She needs Caroline's help for something._

_Shawn says he can find his way by himself, and Caroline smiles uncertainly at him before leaving. Shawn doesn't go back to his parents. He walks right back the way he came and watches the woman on the gurney. He knows he shouldn't look. He knows, but he always looks. He has to look. He has to SEE things._

_The woman opens her eyes and turns her head. He sees her and she sees him._

_She stares right at him and then right through him and the doctors rush her away really quickly._

_When he goes back to his parents, Mom asks, "Are you okay?" and Dad asks, "Find anything good?" and Shawn shakes his head to both questions._

III.

The first thing he's aware of is his father's voice, words on top of he words that he can't seem to separate. _You were pretty scared huh get that ambulance here now find anything we've got a man find anything good he's been shot there's a candy machine in the abdomen in the cafeteria it looks bad Spencer open your eyes dammit why don't you get yourself something . . ._

"Don't want candy," Shawn murmurs. "Dad . . . . I don't . . ."

"Shawn!" That's Gus, not Dad, and Shawn opens his eyes. Gus is right above him, which seems weird. His eyes are all huge . . . he's probably been watching scary movies again. Shawn's told him, _no more Goosebumps on Cartoon Network for you_, but Gus never listens. People should listen to him more. Dad never listens . . . Dad only hears what he wants to hear. Shawn doesn't know where he is. He tries to look past Gus's shoulder to find him. There are a lot of people running around. Juliet's kneeling next to him. She's got her jacket in her hands, holding it down firmly to his stomach. The red is making the gray black. Something seems kind of wrong about that. Shouldn't red and gray make more of a pink, or at least a grayer red . . reay? Gred? He doesn't know.

"Shawn!" Juliet says, and he looks her in the eyes. Her eyes are almost as big as Gus's. Her hair . . . well, it's not horrible; it's Juliet, after all, but it really is a mess. He wants to brush those blonde strands away from her face. Shawn thinks about doing that, but he can still hear his dad somewhere (_I needed it fucking yesterday_) and he starts searching for him again.

"Shawn, can you hear me? Look at me, Shawn; say something."

It seems really important to her, so Shawn says, "Jules," and she looks relieved. (_I don't care what kind of catastrophe happened on the 101. Get me a godamned ambulance already!)_ Shawn can't remember why his dad needs an ambulance so badly. Did he hurt his head or . . . wait, that was years ago. "Jules, where's—"and then he tries to get up.

It turns out to be a pretty dumb thing to do.

For starters, he totally fails to even lift his head up, like, eight inches. The pain in his stomach just _explodes_, like a bomb, like a volcano, like. . . something else that explodes a lot. Maybe it's like a hot dog, the ends that burst if you let them boil a little too long. He thinks things have burst inside of him. Balloons. Red balloons. Juliet gasps again, that whispering of air (_We have to go to the hospital now, Goose_) and Gus pushes down on his shoulders, keeping him in place, keeping him still. He can't keep Shawn's eyes still, though.

Shawn looks at everything around him, trying to find something to focus on other than the pain. He can't focus. There's too much going on. All those officers, running around . . . the TV's still on . . . he had planned to turn it off, knowing that it could screw up his Big Reveal . . . the tail end of a Geico commercial, that creepy, British lizard . . . now it's a rerun of The Cosby Show . . . the lights in the room are flickering; it's a pretty crappy motel . . . hamburger wrappers under the bed . . . pineapple on the dresser . . . full ashtray even though it's a non smoking room . . . Shawn can hear phones ringing . . . people talking . . . Bill Cosby laughing . . . people outside, motel guests, with their big sunglasses and shorts, like this is all some big tourist attraction . . . hats . . . some of them are wearing hats . . . and he can hear his father, but he can't see him, and he really, really wants to see him; he thinks that he needs to see him . . .

"Shawn?"

"Four," Shawn whispers. "There are four hats."

He opens his eyes and Gus is crying and he doesn't know why.

"Shawn," Juliet says, and she sounds pretty desperate, but he can't keep his eyes on her even though he's had no trouble doing such a thing in the past. There's just . . . so . . . _much_ . . . black, shiny shoes walking up . . . Dad's voice, "How's he doing?" . . . but when Shawn looks up, Lassiter's there. He's got a phone in his hand, and he turns away to yell some more, using language that shouldn't be used in front of small children or Bill Cosby. _Naughty, naughty, Lassie_, Shawn thinks. _Someone's gonna have to pay to the curse kitty_. He's yelling about ambulances again. Funny. He thought Dad was the one screaming about ambulances.

But he remembers that Dad wasn't here, when he was going to do his Big Reveal. Dad doesn't really care about his Big Reveals. He calls them theatrics. He calls them childish.

_He's not proud of you_, Shawn remembers. _He's not here. He's fishing today._ This whole time, he's mistaken Lassie's voice for his dad's. And . . . wow. That's just . . . creepy.

His mom would probably have some kind of insight on that. Psychologists always have insight, and sometimes their theories are uncomfortable, sometimes painful, sometimes wrong, but the good ones like to listen to you talk. He thinks that might be why he likes his mom more than his dad. He likes to talk. He likes attention. Cops only like to listen to you if you're confessing your guilt.

Shawn's guilty of stuff. But his Dad's guilty too . . . and his Mom, although he won't admit it . . . at least not out loud . . . everyone's guilty of something . . .

"Spencer!"

Shawn opens his eyes again. He didn't realize that he'd closed them. Something might be wrong with them anyway. He can't see as much as he could before. Things are dark, around the edges, and that's scary. He needs to see stuff. That's how he works. That's his process. He can't even see the pineapple on the dresser.

Maybe it hadn't really been there in the first place. His dad hadn't been there in the first place. Maybe the pineapple was like his dad, some kind of gunshot induced hallucination. He thinks he remembers getting shot now. He remembers the blood pouring from his stomach, like the blood had poured from that girl's stomach, like it had poured from his dad's head. But maybe he didn't get shot, because the pain doesn't hurt so bad anymore. He doesn't feel so much anymore. Maybe that had been a hallucination too.

What he does feel, and this isn't imaginary, or at least he doesn't think it is, is cold. He's really, _really_ cold now. Also, possibly, he's wet. Maybe he fell into some water? Maybe he's floating, like in a pool? That could be. He feels a little weightless . . . but he's shivering. He shouldn't be here.

"It's too cold to go swimming," Shawn murmurs, and for some reason, that makes Lassie look really angry.

He must really want to go swimming. Shawn hadn't really pegged him for a swimming guy. After all, it's hard to wear a gun in your swim trunks. Shawn doubts Lassiter even goes number one unarmed.

"Spencer, hold on!"

Hold on to what? There are no sides to this pool. Floaties? Gus used to have floaties, these awful, bright pink things that Shawn loved to tease him about. He hasn't thought of those things in years. Maybe he'll tease Gus about that now. Or maybe he won't, cause Gus looks a little stressed. Anyway, Shawn isn't sure he feels up to teasing anyone. He's teeth are starting to chatter. He wants out now.

"Gus," he whispers. "Help me out. It's too cold. I'm cold."

Gus's face kind of crumples, like wrapping paper, balled up and thrown away. His tears are drip-dropping on Shawn's arm. Shawn should say something to cheer him up. That's what friends are for. That's what Shawn's always been good for, a moment, a lifetime, of levity. He makes Gus laugh. He loves making people laugh.

He can't think of anything funny, and this, more than anything, tells him that something's really wrong.

_You aren't dying, are you?_

When he closes his eyes again—and really, it's just for a second—all this hallucination/swimming/crying your eyes out stuff is just leaving him exhausted—he hears Jules and Lassie saying his name (_"Shawn!" "Spencer!" "Shawn!" "Spencer!"_). It's actually pretty funny. He tries to laugh, but he starts coughing. He coughs pretty hard, actually, and he's starting to worry that he can't breathe when he feels someone lifting him up from behind. Someone's cradling him, wrapping their arms around him. Rocking him. It feels nice. His mother used to rock him like this sometimes, when he was young and very tired. He doesn't think that this is his mother. Actually, he doesn't think that this is a woman. Maybe that should weird him out, but somehow it doesn't. Whoever's hugging him has warm skin. Shawn's still cold, but this is better. He feels better. He feels safe.

"Come on, Shawn," Gus whispers, right into his ear. His sobbing is louder now, tears pouring down Shawn's neck. "Don't play, Shawn. Come on."

"Coming," Shawn murmurs, and he is; he's coming; he's going . . .

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks, everyone, for reviewing! Here's the, er, harrowing conclusion.

I.

_1987_

_Shawn's nine years old when it happens. He and Gus are playing cards . . . it's so easy, spotting Gus's tells, that Shawn almost feels bad for winning all of his candy. Shawn knows he has him beat again—he's got a flush; Gus has maybe queens over fours—and he's about to bet two blue raspberry Airheads when the phone rings and Shawn freezes._

_It rings once, twice, three times. Mom walks over to answer it, her fingers hesitating just slightly before she picks up the receiver. Shawn holds his breath when his mom doesn't speak. She doesn't speak for almost five years, it seems. Finally, she says, "Betty, calm down. You can still make a good pot roast without mushrooms."_

_Shawn remembers to breathe again. It's just a grown up problem then, nothing important. He can focus on what's really essential, the massive takeover of Gus's candy stash._

_He opens his mouth to place his bet._

_He bursts into tears instead._

_It's the worst thing that's EVER happened to him. Really, he might as well just flee the country, dye his hair black, grow a beard, and maybe change his name to Azhmul or Alibabwa. There's certainly no way he can stay in Santa Barbara now, not after sobbing like a little girl in front of Gus, Gus, who's staring at him like's he grown a second head. His mouth has dropped open. _Drawing flies, _Dad would say._

_Gus reaches out tentatively. "Shawn?" he asks, confused._

_Shawn looks at Gus's hand and just cries harder._

_Yup. Might as well kill himself now. _

_Gus, clearly, has come to the conclusion that this sudden display of waterworks can mean only one thing: his best friend is dying. He stands up and just barrels into the next room, yelling, "Mrs. Spencer! Mrs. Spencer!" at the top of his lungs. Mom glances over, hangs up on Betty and the Pot Roast Dilemma, and quickly ushers Gus out of the house so she can drag a sniffling Shawn to his least favorite place ever: The Couch._

_Okay, maybe not least favorite place EVER. That campsite Dad dragged him to last summer, with all its trees and nature and rabid, flesh-eating raccoons . . . that's a place of true evil. At least The Couch doesn't have beady little eyes. But Shawn hates these impromptu "therapy" sessions, wishes his mother didn't always feel the need to talk through every . . . single . . . thing. If she's not going to help him move out of the country or at least have the decency to smother him with his own Judd Nelson pillow, then he'd rather just pretend that nothing ever happened. _

_But Mom won't go for this. She promises not to tell Dad about the sobfest (a promise she clearly later breaks, but Shawn forgives her because he always forgives her) if he'll only open up to her, tell her what made him cry in the first place. Shawn's a little surprised that she has to ask. He saw how she hesitated, how she always hesitates now, before she picked up the phone, knowing who it could be, what it could mean. He dreams about it sometimes. His memory of that day is perfect. _

_It makes for surround sound nightmares._

_Lion-O is on TV. Even in his sleep, Shawn is riveted, ignoring the phone as it rings once, twice, three times. Every detail is perfect. His mother's gasp as she picks up the phone, how she turns away and then turns back, that awful, broken smile plastered on her face. The smell of snickerdoodle cookies. She'd been baking them. Her voice cracks when she says, "We have to go the hospital now, Goose." Her bare feet SLAP SLAP SLAP against the tile as she walks to him. They leave the house. He's still in his pajamas. Mom doesn't remember to turn off the oven._

_It's supposed to turn out okay. Dad's supposed to have a mild concussion and come home after he strong arms the doctors into giving him the all-clear status that he demands. Mom's supposed to drive them home, discover the oven, and make an unconvincing joke about burning the house down. It's supposed to be quiet and strange. It's supposed to be scary . . . but okay._

_In his dreams, his memory twists, and it just ends up being scary instead._

_Dad isn't complaining about the doctors when they get there. Dad isn't complaining about anything at all. His head isn't bloody; his stomach is, and he's lying on a gurney at the end of a corridor. The doctors are working over him, but it's clear they can't do much. Dad's stomach is this red and squishy mess. Shawn, now alone, stares at him from ten feet away._

_Dad stares at him and then stares through him and then he's gone and Shawn wakes up._

_This isn't the way it really happened, but it's the way it could have been, Shawn knows._

_Mom wraps her arms around Shawn, pulls him close to her chest and rocks him. He's way too old for this, he knows, but he doesn't pull back, not today. "Your father's fine," she tells him gently. "He can take care of himself. There's nothing to be scared of."_

_But Mom sounds a little like she's talking to herself, and Shawn can read her tells, almost as easily as he can read Gus's. He sees her hands tremble when the telephone starts to ring. He hears her fight with Dad when he's supposed to be asleep. He hears her crying, muffled, through the bathroom door at night. He knows that she dreams too._

_Shawn knows how to make it stop. _

_But when Dad comes in, later that night, to talk to him about what happened, he won't listen as Shawn asks him, begs him, to quit his job. Dad says that innocent people could die if he wasn't around to protect them. He says it like that's the end of the discussion, like it's the only thing that matters. But it doesn't matter to Shawn anymore, about those other people—they aren't more important than him, than his mom. His mom's been CRYING because of this. And Shawn—he doesn't want to dream those things, to see those things anymore inside his head. It's not really about the girl, he knows. It's not really about seeing her on that gurney, that bloody mess her stomach had been. He's not really dreaming about her. He barely dreams about Scary Sherry, these days. He just wants his dad to be safe. He wants his dad and his mom and his best friend to be safe, and that's really all that matters, isn't it? Besides becoming a Karate Kid, that is._

_Dad doesn't seem to think so. Dad gets pretty angry, and he starts talking about responsibility again, what it means for others to depend on you. He talks about duty and justice and a whole bunch of other things that Shawn's pretty sure have nothing to do with what HE's talking about. But Dad doesn't listen to Shawn, never has. He says, "You're going to be a cop someday, kid. And a reality of the job is that, sometimes, people are going get hurt._

_Shawn's nine when he says, for the first time, that he's never going to be a cop._

II.

_Come on Shawn don't play sometimes people are going to get hurt are you dying hold on would it kill you to say something I'm never going to be a cop Dad I don't want to go swimming it's too cold how many hats Shawn I don't care how many hats I don't care can you hear me look at me Shawn say something how many hats Shawn how many hats Shawn how many hats Shawn how many—_

There are no hats.

Shawn glances around, blinking heavily at his surroundings. _There aren't any hats_, he realizes, not quite sure why he thought there would be. He's having trouble remembering much (_get a godamn ambulance . . . hold on . . . I want out_) but he's too tired to worry about it, too tired to put the pieces together. He has other things to figure out: for instance, where the hell he is. There are clues here. He's good at clues. His Dad made sure of that. His Dad's here, asleep, cramped up in a teeny little chair. There's a fishing magazine in his lap. It's creased heavily. Read over and over. Dad's been waiting . . . what has he been waiting for? Shawn glances around the room again. White walls. White sheets. White floor. Things sticking out of his arm. An IV pump. Medicine. Narcotics.

Floating.

That, at least, seems familiar, that feeling of weightlessness . . .had he been swimming? (_It's too cold to go swimming._) He can't remember. There's too much. But clearly he's floating on something right now, something fuzzy and warm and _awesome_ . . . pretty much _everything_ feels awesome right now. He's awesome. The whole world's awesome. His brain is totally awesome, maybe a little sticky, but it has awesome powers of awesomeness, and he wholeheartedly trusts in those mental powers to figure this situation out for him. _Think awesome brain think_, Shawn thinks. He's thinking about thinking. That's pretty funny. White walls and IV pump and sweet, sweet goodness . . . one plus one plus one . . .

Always equals morphine.

Shawn laughs at his own cleverness and his father stirs at the sound.

"Henry," Shawn says, smiling. "Hey, Henry. Time to wake up, kiddo. No sleeping."

His dad opens his eyes, blinks once, and then nearly falls out of his chair. It cracks Shawn up. The fishing magazine goes sliding somewhere under Shawn's bed. Dad doesn't even try to retrieve it. "Shawn!"

"You yell a lot," Shawn observes. His eyelids are pretty heavy. He doesn't know how much he slept, but clearly, it wasn't enough. Dad always wants him to get up too early. Shawn detests anything early. Early bird gets the worm? That may be, but then the afternoon hunter shoots the bird and taxidermies the horrible thing and sticks it on the wall, so, clearly, early isn't everything.

Shawn closes his eyes. "Shouldn't do that," he murmurs. "Yelling . . . it messes up your . . . chi . . ."

"Shawn! Shawn, stay awake for a minute, kiddo. Shawn? Come on, kid, please."

Shawn's eyes flutter open. It's the please that gets his attention . . . not that his Dad can't say please . . . . just . . . he usually sounds like his teeth have been clenched together with super glue when he does. He's not gritting his teeth now, but he really is all up in Shawn's personal space, which he's sure they've talked about. Normally, that kind of thing would annoy him. Right now, though, he kind of finds it endearing. Shawn sticks out a finger and touches the side of his Dad's nose. "You've got a freckle," he discovers. "Right . . .there!" Freckles are pretty funny. He never realized how funny freckles were before today. It's starting to hurt just a little to laugh, but not too much. Anyway, he doesn't have a whole lot of options here. His dad has a freckle. _His _dad . . . and a freckle . . .

Dad smiles a little, which should be kind of creepy . . . _is_ kind of creepy, actually, but Shawn's too busy giggling to get worked up over it. "You're high as a kite, kid."

Shawn glances down at the IV in his left arm. "You know," he says, "I think you may be right." And he starts laughing again. This time, he's feeling it a little more in his gut, which probably isn't a great sign. If he's this high, surely, he shouldn't be feeling anything at all. He winces, closes his eyes, and tries not to worry about it. "What happened?" he asks, because he's curious now. You get curious about that kind of thing. He should know; he knows he should know . . .

_Don't play, Shawn. Come on._

Maybe he doesn't want to know.

He expects Dad to lecture him, but all Dad does is sigh. "You got shot, kid," Henry says, and Shawn can't quite remember that.

_How many hats, Shawn?_

_Four_. That, at least, Shawn remembers. There were four hats. He can see them now. Motel guests walking by, an A's cap, a cowboy hat, a Padres hat, and a Fedora . . . who wore a Fedora in Santa Barbara, anyway; what was this, a mafia convention? Tears. He remembers tears. He doesn't know if he'd been crying or not, but someone else had been, crying down his neck. He has the sneaking suspicion it had been Gus. Well, who else could it have been? He remembers his stomach hurting, hurting a lot, until it just suddenly didn't. He remembers Lassiter's shoes, shiny and black. He remembers Juliet gasping and the color of his blood.

He remembers his father's voice, which hadn't really been there.

He doesn't remember getting shot.

He can see the gun now, can see the Bad Guy pulling it from his jacket. He doesn't see why he didn't react faster. He doesn't remember hearing the shot. _You never hear the shot that kills you_. He doesn't remember feeling the bullet.

Shawn doesn't remember, but his awesome brain with its awesome powers knows how to put the clues together. He can always put the clues together.

Super Cop Dad made sure of that.

"Oh," Shawn says, shuddering a little. "Yeah. That."

Dad clearly hasn't had his morning coffee yet. "That's it? That's all you have to say? Just, oh. Yeah. That." His impression of Shawn is horrible, but he doesn't give Shawn the chance to call him on it. He starts pacing around the room. "What the hell were you thinking, Shawn?"

"Clearly, I was thinking of getting shot," Shawn snaps, "cause it sounded like _so_ much fun." Dammit, now he's losing his buzz. His dad can even take the fun out of morphine.

"Don't start, Shawn. Don't start. Dammit, you never think about the consequences of your actions. You just jump right in, assume everything's going to be fine. Well, it's not fine, Shawn. You got hurt this time. Next time you could be dead. You were lucky you didn't die."

"Dad—"

"It may not mean anything to you, but there are people who care about you, people who are going to have show up to your funeral when one of your stupid, jackass stunts gets you killed one day."

"Dad—"

"How do you think I felt, when I got the call that my son had been shot, that the doctors were doing everything they could, but that I needed to be realistic? How do you think I felt then, huh?"

Shawn doesn't say anything.

Dad turns away and laughs a little, shaking his head as he looks out the window. "I've been waiting for that call my whole life," he says. "I've been waiting for someone to tell me that one of the ridiculous things that my son has done has finally gotten him killed, that this time, he's not coming back, that I've lost my only child. Do you have any idea what that's like, Shawn? Well, of course not, because you've never had to be responsible for anything in your whole life—"

"Excuse me," Shawn says, sitting up and furious now. "But I know exactly what that's like."

"Oh, you do?" Dad spreads his arms wide, a mockery of a welcoming gesture. It matches the bitterness in his smile. "Well, please, Shawn. Enlighten me."

So Shawn does. "It's when your nine years old," he says, "and you're watching Thundercats on TV, and your mom has to tell you that your dad's in the hospital, that there's been some kind of shooting—"

Dad turns away from him suddenly, arms crossing as he glares out the window. Shawn can see his reflection in the glass, impatience and disgust written into every feature. "Oh, please, Shawn," Dad says, but Shawn's not letting him get away with that. He sits up straighter in the hospital bed. His body is none too happy with the arrangement. The pain which, so far, has been merely teasing its full potential, suddenly just _blooms _into being, cutting straight through the morphine and exploding in his stomach. _(He thinks things have burst inside of him. Balloons. Red balloons.)_ His vision whites out for a second. He grips the handrails with both hands.

His sudden intake of breath is jagged, and Dad's back in his personal space by the time he can see again.

"Shawn—" Dad says, but Shawn shakes his head. He's not losing this one, dammit.

"It's when your dad's a cop," Shawn says, in between harsh, unsteady breaths. "And whenever the phone rings, _every_ time the phone rings, you know it could be _the_ call, the one saying your dad's been killed in a drug heist or trying to stop a bank robbery or in the middle of a car chase. You know, and you have to watch your mother know it every time the phone rings too."

"Shawn—" Dad says again, but Shawn isn't going to hear it.

"It's knowing that your dad cares more about his stupid job than he ever did about his family, even when his wife tells him that he needs to stop, even when his kid _begs _him to finally stop—"

Shawn's hands are gripping the side rails so hard that his arms are shaking. He can literally feel the color draining from his face. The sweat on his forehead feels cold and clammy.

"Enough, Shawn!" Dad says. "Enough," and Shawn doesn't have much choice. He lets go and slumps back to the mattress, all his energy and fury drained straight from him. Dad steps toward him, like he's going to give him a hug, or wants to anyway, but instead he starts towards the door. "I should get a doctor," he says, not looking at Shawn. "I'll be—"

But Shawn doesn't want to hear that, that he'll be right back, that he has to go, and he startles both of them by quickly reaching out and grabbing Dad's jacket sleeve. "Wait," he says, and he feels dizzy and burnt out and maybe just a little bit scared of being alone, even though there's no reason to be, even though The Bad Guy is deader than dead. "Wait, can't we just—can't you just—can't . . ."

He breaks off, frustrated, and looks away from his father. "Don't," he mutters, not wanting to see the expression in his Dad's eyes, disappointed, as always. "Just don't."

Shawn lets go of his Dad's sleeve, never looking up, until Dad finally says, "Okay," and sits back down in his teeny chair. He does hit the intercom button, though, and someone asks what he needs. Dad says that his son's awake and in pain. The person on the other line sounds bored. Shawn bets no one will be here for awhile.

"They said you were asking for me, kid," Dad says suddenly, while picking up his fishing magazine. "At the motel, they said you called for me."

Shawn risks a quick glance at him. "Delirious," he says, shrugging.

Dad smiles a little at that. "Yeah," he says. "That's what I said too." Shawn watches him flip through the magazine again. He wants to say something. He doesn't know what, but he wants to say something, give something, share something. He'd needed to see him so badly at the motel, and now he doesn't remember what he'd needed to say, what he can say, to ease this . . . this thing between them.

"There were four hats," he offers finally. "I saw four hats at the crime scene."

Dad clearly doesn't know what to do with that. Shawn can't blame him for saying nothing.

_You were pretty scared, huh?_

"I wasn't," he murmurs to himself.

"What?"

Shawn turns slowly on his side. The pain in his stomach is a muted agony, but he ignores it. (_He needs to see stuff. That's how he works_.) "I wasn't scared," he says quietly. "I was . . . I was confused, but I wasn't scared."

"You were in shock," Dad says. He sounds angry again.

"I couldn't put the pieces together." Shawn shakes his head, trying to make his peace with that. He can't remember the guy pulling the trigger. He remembers thinking he bumped into the desk . . . but he doesn't remember how it felt now, the pain when the bullet must have entered his body. He can't remember the bullet entering his body. "I can't put the pieces together . . ."

"You almost died, kid," Dad says. Shawn looks at him. What was he supposed to say . . .

"I didn't."

Henry snorts and looks away and they don't talk again until the nurse comes in. She flirts a little with Shawn, since Shawn's giving his best I'm-dying-but-aren't-I-charming-and-adorable smile. That is, until his Dad ruins it by saying how much pain he's in. His dad gets in the way of everything.

Nurse Cutie gets all professional after that. She doses him up with some more meds and soon she disappears, and Shawn can't feel much of anything. His vision is darkening again. He doesn't like it, doesn't want it. He has the strangest urge to try and find the pineapple. He glances around, and there are balloons and cards but no pineapples.

He doesn't want to go back to sleep, doesn't want to be pulled under and cold and drowning again. He doesn't like this feeling so much anymore, this medicated haze, darkness and numbness and loneliness. He needs to be able to look, to see the clues around him. He always looks, always. He needs to be able to see . . .

He's scared. He's really scared now.

The Bad Guy's dead, but he still shot Shawn; he broke the rules. Only Shawn's allowed to break the rules. He's sure he has that posted somewhere. He's sure it says somewhere that no one's supposed to shoot Shawn Spencer, that no one's supposed to get hurt, that everything's supposed to turn out okay.

But everything's not okay this time. Dad's right. Shawn got shot. He doesn't remember getting shot. He almost died. He almost didn't wake up.

He hopes he'll remember to wake up again.

Shawn can't open his eyes. He can't see anything but darkness, but he reaches out blindly for his dad's hand and whispers, "Don't go. Don't go."

He doesn't want to be alone.

He thinks he feels fingers squeezing his own fingers, lips pressed down against his forehead, tears-drip-dropping on his skin.

_I love you_, his Dad says, but Shawn probably just dreams that.

FIN

A/N: I definitely plan to do a follow-up to do this eventually, but I'm still working out which direction I want to go. If anybody would like to see a sequel, though, I'd love to hear it.


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